muckefuck: (Default)
muckefuck ([personal profile] muckefuck) wrote2009-05-31 08:55 pm
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Zły wpływ

Wczoraj w nocy upiłem się i poszedłem grać w gierki z sąsiadami. Każdy przyniósł coś do podziału: bourbon, "wineshine" (mieszany z winem bimber?), sherry persymonową (mój przyczynek) i więcej poza tym. Opowiadaliśmy sobie tajemnice. Państwo w sąsiednim domu mają nazwisko polskie, a więc zapytałem żonę, czy jej mąż mówi po polsku. Nie tylko nie mówi, ale nie wymawia swojego nazwiska poprawnie! Ona to wymawia lepiej niż on a jest Filipinką! Nie położyłem się aż do późna, ale dobrze się bawiłem.

[identity profile] muckefuck.livejournal.com 2009-06-01 02:55 pm (UTC)(link)
Some anglicisation is inevitable, such as in cases where the names really do incorporate sounds which are foreign to English. (On the other hand, cf. Bach.) But a lot of time, the shifts are needless and driven more by Americans' ignorance of phonics than anything else. For instance, one of my grade school classmates had the surname "Konieczny" which she pronounced "kuh-NEE-zuh-nee". This is no easier to say than a far closer approximation of Polish [kɔ'ɲɛʈ͡ʂnɨ] such as "kuhn-YECH-nee" and didn't really make her life any easier, since she was forever telling everyone how to spell and pronounce her name as it was.

[identity profile] strongaxe.livejournal.com 2009-06-01 10:48 pm (UTC)(link)
There are certain letter combinations in Polish that have very different pronunciations than the same ones in English (for example, c = "ts" not "k", cz = "ch" not "z", ie = "ye" not "ee", j = "y" not "dzh" etc.) It's less a matter of sounds that can't be pronounced, and more a matter that a different set of default pronunciation rules are being invoked. In her case, 3 out of 9 of the letters in her name have non-English pronunciations. In my case, it's 6 out of 7, making it almost pointless to expect English-speakers who aren't also Polish-speakers to be able to pronounce it correctly.